


she is art alive

by oreiad



Category: Elementary (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Demon Summoning, Demons, F/F, and joan is a demon, but jamie and sherlock are still wayy to curious and clever for their own good, some kind of au where jamie and sherlock are friends
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-15
Updated: 2017-01-15
Packaged: 2018-09-17 15:56:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,162
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9332462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oreiad/pseuds/oreiad
Summary: Jamie and Sherlock summon a demon in their free time





	

**Author's Note:**

> I'm using they/them/their as singular pronouns in reference to the demon if you're confused!

“It worked,” Jamie says, breathless, eyes bright even through the dizziness. It didn’t make sense, how she didn’t even blink, but something had been built from empty space and abandoned molecules, right in front of her eyes. Something so strange, and dangerous, and—and  _ beautiful. _

A disbelieving laugh tears out of her throat, soft but unexpected, and she couldn’t pretend anymore that there hadn’t been some part of her that had wanted this to work, as she’d bit through foreign sounds, the weight of the words heavy on her tongue, echoing through the grey walls, she couldn’t pretend anymore that the crack in her voice was out of fear, of last-minute regret, but out of excitement—

Sherlock gives himself a vigorous shake of his head, seemingly disoriented, rocking on the balls of his feet by the other side of the room. His lips thin, and he begins taking slow, calculated steps towards the centre, entire figure buzzing, tension in his body spreading. 

She stares at the minute way his nails trembled, before looking up again, watching his eyes, her head tilted with an anticipatory grin. But she stays by the wall, watches as he stops two metres away from  _ it _ , hands furiously patting the sides of his thighs, an urgent attempt at soothing himself. Bouncing back on his heels, he glances at her, brow raised at the curve of her mouth, before leaning towards it, squinting. “What do you think it’ll do?” His words are a rush, laced with adrenaline.

“ _ It _ ,” the figure says, smiling, the tugs of muscles that should appear familiar only warping the face into some kind of empty, meaningless expression ( _ Jamie _ thought of it as a smile, with something leaking at the edges, like a cracked glass holding snake venom), “will snap your neck if you won’t stop addressing me like some sort of animal.” Smile still in-place, words conversational. Jamie feels a thrill prick at her veins.

“Of course,” she says, lowering her head with a contemplative expression, “that one over there is the real animal,” she hums, jerking her chin at Sherlock, who stays silent. Their head snaps to her, and she feels the full weight of the grey eyes, slits of black in the centre, and she  _ swears _ she sees the line between grey and black blur, and she finds herself staring, lips parting ever-so-slightly. Head tilted, they regard her, expression passive, almost clinical in the way their eyes run over her. She suppresses a shiver. They stand in the middle of the room, on the summoning circle she’d drawn, head tilted at her as they shift their weight from one foot to rest on the other, movements graceful, but filled with a violent energy, even as they still, eyes narrowed.

They watch her for a minute more, and when black begins to drown out grey, the corner of their lips twitches. “I get the feeling you two aren’t the sort I usually get.”

“And what sort is it that you usually get?” Sherlock blurts, now driven by pure curiosity, and the trace of something dark outlines their edges, as they flick their eyes over their shoulder, before returning them to Jamie, who keeps them with a tongue barely lining the edges of her lips. Her mouth twists crudely, head cocked, almost in challenge.

“Mostly those who seek to remake and to be remade,” they say, airily, deliberately, eyes sharp even with the showy gestures and vague words.

Jamie and Sherlock exchange glances.

“You mean,” Sherlock says, careful, holding their attention with a nod, “those who seek to revive their loved ones.”

They laugh. “Loved ones? I have found humans to be capable of incredible fixation and— _ persuasion _ . Even of themselves.”

His mouth twitches in a smile. “I imagine you find yourself with a lot of requests to bring back celebrities long dead.”

They grin. Jamie thinks that at the end of this, they will tear the both of them apart.

“Were you remade?”

Grey eyes flicker to her. Cautious. Intrigued. “I was.” And their expression closes off to something polite, but vicious, like a vulture circling a starving deer, patient, always reminding you of what they are.

Sherlock seems to notice the same thing and quickly pursues another line of inquiry, attempting to satisfy as much of his curiosity as possible. “How can you tell? That we are different, I mean.”

The figure makes a dismissive gesture. “You two seem arrogant, bored,  _ stupid _ , if anything. But not the way most are. The way most are confident that some begging will grant them mercy, or that I am easily conquerable.” They hum, a soft sound, “Arrogant, bored,  _ clever. _ I can’t decide which. Clever, but likely not clever enough.” Their voice turns sweet, and she can almost believe that the figure standing in front of her is as delicate as they look, words like honey, like needles, piercing and dragging her in. 

“I imagine,” she says, breathless, “that they prostrate themselves before you, asking you for magnanimity, for understanding, thinking you capable of either.” Her eyes shutter, half-lidded. “What do they say when they realise you are not?” They take a step towards her, intrigued.

“They cry, and they call me the devil.” 

“Are you male or female?” Sherlock abruptly asks, brows furrowed.

The demon arches an eyebrow, grey eyes cutting. “Why do you insist on living under such strange dichotomies?”

“I was just wondering: long, well-groomed hair, perfectly-done makeup, high heels”

“And an incredible fashion sense,” Jamie appraises, eyes bright, blatantly trailing along their figure.

Sherlock pauses as he narrows his eyes at her, before saying, “I meant I’d mistake you for a human woman.”

Their lips curve, but the expression is quickly smoothed into one of apathy, and they spend the ensuing silence glancing between the two of them with bored, half-lidded eyes, before offering a shrug instead. “This is not my skin.”

“Did you kill for it?” Sherlock asks, still careful, and Jamie can’t help herself as she braces her hands on the concrete wall behind her, leaning forward.

Surprised laughter.  _ “Of course not,” _ then, “I don’t enjoy getting my hands dirty.”

“If your job description doesn’t include getting your hands dirty,” Jamie says, words slow, and their eyes latch onto hers, sharp, expectant, “then what is it  _ do _ you do?”

They smile. “We have very bad reputations here, for some reason. Your kind has gotten many things wrong.”

The demon pauses then, as if in thought. “Well, you did get some things right,” they concede, voice in a painfully low sing-song, “Demons guard where sinners go, twisting their heads till they lose themselves,” and their grey eyes flash black, lips twitching over teeth in a barely restrained snarl, “and we do not like to be disturbed by such  _ pathetic _ beings as yourselves.”

There’s a panicked beat as Sherlock and Jamie still, and she zeroes in on the raw edge in their voice, the primal anger threatening to burst through the seams, before something  _ clicks. S _ he lets out a breath she didn’t even realise she was holding, and doubles over, laughing, high and abrupt. They cock their head, amusement lining their face, dragging their eyes across the bent-over figure, patient.

“She’s playing with us,” Jamie says, by way of explanation, glancing at Sherlock, before she shakes her head, wiping at her eyes. The demon has dropped the façade at this point, grey eyes aflame, looking positively  _ delighted _ . “So completely and thoroughly,” Jamie continues, softer, a strange surge of  _ wonder _ coursing through her when she meets those eyes, feeling her own darken, as she suppresses the growl that scratches at the back of her throat.

They take a step towards her, one of their heels scratching the edge of the circle. She wonders if they can leave it. “Do you have a name?” Jamie asks, searching through their lovingly carved features.

“Joan. Joan Watson.”

“That’s not very demonic, is it?”

They laugh. “We weren’t all brought up in latin or hebrew.”

“ ‘Brought up’? So you were, then? Human?”

Joan does a flashy little curtsy, sarcasm dripping through the gesture. “Very. Warped from a rotten soul by Lucifer’s own hand.”

“Sounds intriguing,” Jamie says, humming, “but this? It isn’t your body?”

“It is.” And it is only at this point, does Jamie realise Joan is already out of the circle, and the demon doesn’t pause in their steps, heels clacking against the bare concrete floor as they close the gap between them, till she could almost feel their breath on her lips. Almost. She digs her nails into the wall behind her.

She also notices that Sherlock is gone. “Then how is it not your own skin?”

“It is a cloak,” they reply, tilting their head at Jamie, like she was some sort of jigsaw they had to piece together, with no clue what the end was meant to be. “This was the body I had, but I remember nothing about it.” There is quiet resignation in her words. “In hell, I lose this form – haven’t had to wear it for a very long time.”

Jamie wonders at the situation. At the demon showing her hand, at the demon laying herself out so much more thoroughly than she would’ve expected based on the writings. “Why,” she says, voice suddenly low, almost reverent, “don’t you remember?”

They raise a hand to brush a stray strand of Jamie’s hair behind her ear, before a grin ghosts across their mouth. “I had been too wicked, as one of the living. Lucifer wiped my slate blank, to give me a fresh start,” Joan says, words soft.

Her mouth quirks. “I thought demons were born blood-red and chaos. No one ever told me they were allowed to be this beautiful.”

They roll their eyes, laughter quiet under their breath. Jamie smiles, humming as she twirls a finger around one of the locks that framed Joan’s face. “Then what do you do now, darling?” At  _ ‘darling’ _ , Joan’s eyes darken, glancing up at Jamie through their lashes, lips parted with a breath.

“I—” They give their head a small shake. “I counsel. Help the ones sent down there to repent, see the light, and all that.”

“That’s—”

“—unexpected,” Sherlock finishes, from the other side of the room, like he’d never left at all.

“Where did you go?” She asks, eyebrow arched over an unimpressed gaze, and he raises the bag of sandwiches, and the bottles of soft drinks. “Went to get the food we’d left in the car.”

He peels the plastic from a sandwich, stuffing it into his mouth. “This has been a very anti-climatic afternoon,” he offers by way of explanation, without any prompt. “Not that I’m complaining. Imagine if our friend here was exactly like all the myths described. That would be particularly disastrous. Esp—”

“If I ram your leg down your throat  _ right now,” _ Joan cuts him off, amusingly unamused, “would that provide the climax you want?”

Sherlock frowns, looking between the two of them, then nods to himself. “Right. I interrupted.”

“Bright boy,” Jamie drawls, and the demon laughs.

He huffs, “Well, Joan is clearly not even remotely dangerous—” “I would love to see you say that with a lungful of blood.” “—so I’ll just wait in the car.” He waves a bottle, throwing it across the room, and Joan manages to catch it, handing it to Jamie all in one smooth motion. Sherlock leaves, gulping down the sports drink with another wave.

Jamie unscrews the bottle, baring her throat as she throws her head back, tipping the bottle between her lips, taking her time between each swallow to savour the taste, lashes fluttering. When she screws the cap back on, and locks eyes with Joan again, the demon makes a low sound from the back of their throat, teeth bared, pupils blown.

Jamie smirks. “So,” she says, “would you be able to drink this?”

They don’t seem to hear her, though, and she has to repeat her question. “You mean human food?” They finally reply, after an anticipatory raise of an eyebrow.

Jamie nods.

They shrug. “Sure. Nothing would happen to me, but I don’t really need it either.”

“Right. So, we should have dinner some time, now that I know we theoretically can. Call me.” She hands the dumbstruck Joan her business card, feeling satisfied to have made a demon so speechless. “Even bringers of hellfire know how to use payphones, right?”  

They look mildly surprised, eyes round, as they stare at the card in their hands, then at her, and Jamie suspects it’s the only genuine display of emotion from them this entire afternoon, but the expression quickly disappears, and an arrogant tilt of the mouth replaces it, their grey eyes sharp.  “We’ll see.” And the demon disappears, with only the crudely drawn summoning circle proof they had ever been here.

Jamie whistles, heading out to find Sherlock, and wonders if time worked the same way in hell as it did up here.

**Author's Note:**

> this is really just an exercise in self-indulgence hHAHA but i hope it was an okay read!!
> 
> EDIT: I...am so incredibly embarrassed. I have accidentally left "prostrate" as "prostate" for MONTHS!


End file.
